I certainly hadn't, until I read an article in New Scientist about an exhibition in London (complete with re-enactors) dealing with Victorian science.
It certainly is unique. In the distillery I’m handed a ‘special herbal concoction’ to reduce my levels of black bile, the apparent cause of melancholia. While I’m not convinced the Victorian cures all involved gin, this is a brilliant introduction to the widely held belief that diseases were caused by imbalances in the body’s four humours: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood.
Feeling much better, I wander through the rabbit warren of tunnels, passing a makeshift theatre and a series of dimly lit rooms, each with its own scientist in residence, revealing the answers to questions you never knew you had.
In one, I’m treated to details of some incredibly gruesome poisons and learn never to drink cider from a pewter tankard (the combination produces toxic lead acetate). In another I discover I’m not too bad at the Victorian pastime of mathematical puzzles.
. . .
Before I leave, I catch a shadow puppet show about the moon and a panel discussion where audience members are invited onstage to mime the debate topics (I’m particularly impressed someone guessed tempest prognosticator).
There's more at the link.
Intrigued, I turned to the Wikipedia article about tempest prognosticators, where I read:
The tempest prognosticator, also known as the leech barometer, is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer.
The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck.
Again, more at the link. You can read more here about this strange device, which was on display during the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.
Quite apart from the dubious science involved, how incongruous that a device to warn of approaching bad weather should be invented by someone named Merryweather!
Peter
3 comments:
It is now the central instrument at the Hadley Climate Research Unit...
Seriously, how do they think of these things? "Let's get some slugs to vote on whether a storm is coming"?
I am always amazed by the striking correlation of names and events.
Lorena Bobbitt? etc. Recently a rabid cougar was killed with a cast iron frying pan on "bloody Basin Rd."
It is way more frequent than one would think, perhaps evidence that God has a sense of humor.
Truth is, I can think of worse folk medicines & remedies than gin.
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